Eighteen Saturdays until college football consumes your life, but who’s counting?

Despite May being more of a wretched month for college football fans, there were some interesting headlines this week to discuss. Let’s make the rounds…

Playoff expansion talk…already?

CBS Sports polled 27 FBS-level athletic directors about the ensuing playoff, and 15 of them think the four-team playoff will be expanded to eight teams over the next 10 years.

Pardon me for the soapbox: This would be a terrible mistake. Did you think the Iron Bowl was awesome this year? I did, too, as did the rest of college football outside of Tuscaloosa, but should the four-team playoff be expanded to eight, that game doesn’t even matter on a national level. Nothing’s on the line; it’s nothing more than another game between two teams that would have gotten in the eight-team playoff. I’m okay with a four-game playoff, but anything more totally dilutes the best regular season in all of sports. We already have an awesome playoff. It’s called every Saturday.

Pac-12 with toughest strength of schedule?

Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott said he would like to see all of college football go to some uniform eight- or nine-game conference schedule. That’s not going to happen, and it’s really an afterthought after the SEC’s future schedule is officially staying at eight games. But that’s not what was interesting. Scott said the Pac-12’s strength of schedule is tougher than the SEC’s. We all know that’s not exactly true – yet, but if there’s one conference that can challenge the league, it’s the Pac-12. There has to come a time when the SEC won’t be the most dominant conference in college football, right? Scott would tell you that time is now. How far off is he? Scott, like his coaches, is merely starting to put a bug in the selection committee’s ear.

Big Ten making coin

The Big Ten has struggled on the field compared to other major conferences and has been criticized for such a weak product, but the one thing you can’t criticize them for is revenue.

According to a report in the Journal & Courier, the Big Ten projects its revenues will grow each year, and with a new TV deal on the way, the conference expects 12 of its 14 schools to make around $44.5 million during the 2017-18 school year. That would be the first year of the new television deal.

Some analysts have projected SEC schools to make $30-35 million per year per school starting in 2014 under the new SEC Network.